We received a question from a visitor who hates working out, she said what would be best for weight loss, developing a more active lifestyle/job or going to a gym 4 times each week? We decided to answer the question by looking at a fictional case study.

Working out at the local gym
Before we can estimate the calories burned from any gym session we first need to look at the individual, the type of exercise and the intensity level. We must set the same standard in order to compare the two ways. The individual I am using for this example is a 30 year old male weighing 154 pounds (70Kg, or 11 stones). Every gym session he will jog for about an hour. He would have some breaks during the hour but for this example I will calculate for a full hour. For this example the exercise will be a jog, and the intensity of the jog will be a very light, easy pace.

For the case of jogging this individual would burn up to 500 calories. This is not a bad number of calories burned during a training session; after all, another 6 workouts and it would equal the same calories in one pound of fat. However, dont forget this is assuming a frequency of 4 workouts per week, what if he did no other exercise for the other 3 days in the week?

If we take into account the 3 days without exercise then that 500 calories actually becomes 285 excess calories burned per day (500 x 4 workout days = 2000 divide by 7 days = 285 excess calories burned every day). Also, because there are 3500 calories in one pound of body fat, it would take at least 12 days to lose one pound. I dont think many dieters would be motivated with such slow progress.

These calculations make me realise how poor gym workouts can be for an overweight person who joins a gym just purely to lose weight. I mean 285 calories is nothing; this can easily be spoiled with one extra chocolate bar or a dessert! Plus many dieters find it hard to drag themselves to the gym just for a few sessions per week, but in this case we are talking about four, one-hour sessions each week!

This doesnt mean working out is a waste of time, after all there are many other health benefits to exercise, however, losing weight is all about calories and in this case the energy expended is fairly low to produce any real results.

For any dieter to lose a satisfactory amount of weight in the above example he would have to follow a strict calorie reduced diet along with the gym sessions.

Develop an active lifestyle
With an active job or lifestyle fewer calories are burned per hour than a gym session but the consistent rate can make a greater total of energy burned over the course of a day, even with a job that doesnt make you feel like youre exercising. For example, if our male worked as a postman with an average 8 hour shift, we could estimate that during an average day he would be walking 50% of the time, 40% he would be standing, and the other 10% would be coffee breaks, lunch, etc. This calculates to 4 hours walking and over 3 hours standing. Our average man would burn up to 1100 calories per day (700 walking + 400 standing). Over a thousand excess calories burned every day is a huge amount and means he would lose weight relatively quickly with little or no dieting.

Ok not all dieters are postmen, nor am I saying they should change jobs in order to lose weight. The point is any job could be made more active with a little imagination. Using every excuse available to become more active at work can really add up to a big difference in energy expenditure. Maybe go fetch everyones lunch from the canteen, go to the furthest toilet in the building when you need to spend a penny, use the stairs rather than the lift or get off the bus one stop before your normal stop and walk. These are just suggestions but if you use your imagination you can find many other ways to burn off more calories during an average work day. Also a job is done every day so the calories burned per week add up higher.

Even if you cannot possibly make changes to your work day, there is still a chance to make changes in your own time. Simply focus on completing more everyday tasks such as cleaning, maintenance, gardening, housework or walking the dog. Again its all about using the imagination to create activity. Im sure 2 hours cleaning out the garage, and one hour walking the dog will burn more calories than working out for an hour.

Which is the best way to lose weight?
An active job or lifestyle is the obvious winner here. The calorie burning potential was more than twice that of the workout. Yes, in the real world not many dieters will work as postmen, roofers or on a construction site, but we could also state that not many people would be prepared to run for a complete hour for four workouts a week. The above examples were used to illustrate the positive effects of any change in lifestyle.

In other articles on my site I do write about what would be the best exercise, but this is no contradiction as any suggestion would be in a different context, in this article I was considering those who struggle to get to the gym or really detest exercise. If I hated working out I would definitely try for an active lifestyle, after all, I could complete all my chores and burn many more calories, and probably without the necessity of following an awful, restrictive diet!